Friday, May 26, 2006

Podcast Automation Minutes Posted Another edition of Automation Minutes is posted. 12:56:50 PM    comment []

Justice is served I see that Lay and Skilling have been convicted for their roles in the Enron debacle. Glad to see the jury didn't buy the "ignorance" defence. I don't know a lot of details, but if the top two managers don't know what's going on in their company, in my book they're guilty of something, to be sure. How in the world can you go to your board and stockholders and say "I have no idea what's going on in the company" ? If I'm on the board, I'd fire their [butts]. But then to destroy so much wealth and the retirement income of their employees and the whole California energy thing... We've gone through many years of juries having sympathy for celebrity defendants. Glad to see one jury had courage, at any rate. Are you running a company? Where are your ethics? 7:17:48 AM    comment []

Mill Products MES Here is a new product in the "production management" category, otherwise known as MES. Apriso has released FlexNet for Mill Products (primarily pulp & paper and metals industries). The company uses aunified data model to provide visibility into the manufacturing process such that managers and operators can make better decisions. Among the areas it impacts are: Energy efficiency Quality assurance, integrating quality processes directly into the production module Inventory, manage suppliers Adaptability, operators can change production process within hours without IT support FlexNet integrates with production, warehouse, quality, maintenance, time and labor, and supplier visibility all in one package. It also integrates with ERP solutions from SAP, Oracle and others. It also incorporates OSIsoft's PI historian. 7:09:28 AM    comment []

Industrial Wireless Standards ISA has a very active committee working to develop stantards for wireless systems--ISA-SP100. The committee has laid a foundation for subsequent work and has just announced the formation of two standards working groups. The SP100.14 working group will define wireless connectivity standards optimized for the unique performance and cost needs of a wide range of industrial monitoring, logging and alerting applications. The SP100.11work group will define wireless connectivity standards addressing a wide range of applications optimized but not restricted to the uniqueperformance needs of control applications ranging from closed loop regulatory control through open loop manual control. Both work groups will coordinate their activities to enable SP100 to provide a complete and integrated set of standards for industrial wireless applications. "The ISA-SP100 standard will allow compliant devices that are relatively low complexity, reasonable cost, and low power consumption to support long battery life where needed. The communication data rates must be sufficient to satisfy the range of needs typically associated with these classes," explained Committee co-chair Richard Sanders of ExxonMobil. The SP100.11 Working Group is chaired by Pat Kinney of Kinney Consulting LLC and co-chaired by Wayne Manges of Oak Ridge National Lab. Chair of the SP100.14 Working Group is Daniel Sexton of General Electric Global Research. The committee is looking for volunteers to help with the work. If you have interest and expertise, please contact Lois Ferson of ISA at lferson@isa.org. The committee will meet during Sensors Expo which will be held June 6-8 at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL (Chicago area). 6:54:50 AM    comment []